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Shimmering with Deborah Rose: Posthuman theory-making with feminist ecophilosophers and social ecologists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2020

Karen Malone Open the ORCID record for Karen Malone [Opens in a new window] ,
Marianne Logan ,
Lisa Siegel Open the ORCID record for Lisa Siegel [Opens in a new window] ,
Julie Regalado  and
Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen
Karen Malone*
Affiliation:
Department of Education, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Marianne Logan
Affiliation:
School of Education, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Lisa Siegel
Affiliation:
School of Education, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Julie Regalado
Affiliation:
School of Education, Western Sydney University, New South Wales, Australia
Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen
Affiliation:
Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*
*Corresponding author: Email: kmalone@swin.edu.au
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Abstract

Drawing on a posthuman lens we walk — with Deborah Bird Rose and her conceptual framing of shimmer. We explore shimmering as incorporating a sensorial richness, as beauty and grandeur, as constantly in flux, moving between past, future and back again. Shimmering has potentiality in a posthuman context in its encompassing of spiritual and ancestral energies and illumination of the human (settler) story of exceptionalism. By theorising shimmer with this posthuman lens, we acknowledge and honour the eco-ethico consciousness raised by Australian ecophilosophers and ecofeminists such as Deborah Bird Rose and Val Plumwood, and the social ecologists who have continued to walk with them. In order to disrupt anthropocentricism and present a moral wake-up call that glows from dull to brilliance in these precarious times, we bring to environmental education the potential of holding the shimmering past tracings of theory along with us on our journeys.

Keywords

shimmerDeborah Bird Roseposthumanismecophilosophyecofeminismsocial ecologyenvironmental humanitiesdeep ecologyAnthropocene
Type
Research/Practice Articles
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 36 , Special Issue 2: Mapping-making philosophy in environmental education: Lines, knots and knotting , July 2020 , pp. 129 - 145
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Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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